Monday, May 7, 2012

Sleepy Hollow - Preview

I headed up to Vermont this weekend with the intent of hanging out with Eric (and his dog Murdoch) and watching them race at the Mutt Strutt.Eric and I took the opportunity to head over to Huntington to preview the SleepyHollowMountain race which will be held next weekend (May 13).

The afternoon was sunny and comfortable for an “easy” run over the course.We paid our trail fee and headed out.We went slowly to not wear out Eric and Murdoch, but also to navigate the map and copious course notes.

The first loop, of the three different loops that made up the course, was a nice grassy run to the Butternut Cabin.We stopped and checked out the view of Camel’s Hump and then continued on to the top of the 1,400’ hill.

We didn’t exactly bomb down the hill, more like a leisurely stroll while Murdoch would sprint ahead and chase anything that moved in the woods.The course was a little muddy in random spots but so far seemed fairly run-able.I never saw any rocky ground except on the single-track and even that didn’t seem too bad.

We looped around and got a little disoriented on the second climb.We both liked the “Star Wars” names for trails.I especially liked saying “lets go down on Princess Leia”.We topped out again and headed down (with some trouble finding the correct trail and doubling back a bit).

The second downhill on Bishop Trail seemed to be the fastest and straightest part of the course.We finished up our run at that point choosing to not do the final loop having already been out for about 5 miles and just under an hour of running.

I plan on heading back up on Saturday and re-running the entire course before the race.It looks like a lot of fun, but not the kind of course I’d do well on.My strength is long steady and steep climbs…but I’ll be there giving it a go!

3 comments:

Thanks for the course preview. A friend of mine who works at the Mt. Washington Observatory says they can see Camels Hump. They wanted to make shirts that say Mt. Washington Observatory: watching camels hump since 1876.

Dave - Sorry I missed you! And that we didn't have the course marked out yet. When were you up here? We're going to try to reroute some of the muddier sections, although the way the rain is coming down now, I'd recommend racing in spikes! - Kasie